Boy, Interrupted

Even though I have been performing poetry at different events, the idea of having a stage entirely to myself frightened me and made me happy at the same time. In elementary school, starting around fourth grade, I began performing with a violin instrumental as backup. It made the performance more than simple narration or something static — it gave the poems space to experiment. I used the same instrumental throughout the following years of elementary school.

At 28, Boy, Interrupted — under the motto come see the kid, come meet the poet, come listen to the space in between — came from a need to go back to the child who dreamed big and to finally acknowledge him. The evening started with a short video of me as a child. After that, I read poems I’ve written over the years, accompanied by different backup instrumentals. The pieces moved through grief, love, and everything in between.

The performance traveled across several spaces: Project Space Sekhmet in Prishtina, Destil Creative Hub in Tirana, Mi Casa Es Tu Casa in Shkodër, Lumbardhi Cinema in Prizren, and ended at the Zana Literature Festival in Mitrovica.